more traditions

thinking more about christmas traditions, another one of my favorites that lingers from childhood is my mom's party mix. you know, good ol' chex mix. my mom makes a crazy mean batch of party mix and everyone always wants a bag. she's famous for it in our family, and it disappears fast. you have to get there early and hide a bag of it in your purse.

i remember the party-mix-making-night when i was a kid. a few days before christmas, usually on a friday or saturday night, mom and dad would set up shop in the kitchen and make a massive batch of party mix. we're talking 5 or 6 boxes of cereal, plus tons of pretzels and nuts, many many baking sheets. mom would melt an obscene amount of butter in the microwave and she and dad stood at the bar, adding dashes of worchestershire, seasoning salt, and tabasco until it was juuuuust right. then mom would bake batches all evening long. toward the end she'd spike up the rest of the butter with a bunch of extra tabasco and make spicy batches for my dad and uncle russell. by the time she was done, you couldn't walk past the oven without your eyes watering.

christmas memories are very sensory for me. when i think about the things that really mean "christmas" to me, i think about karen carpenter on the stereo and spicy cereal on my tongue, the smell of beer in my dad's moustache as he kissed me goodnight and the feel of my mom's smooth, cool hands on my chapped cheeks.

it's influenced the way i celebrate christmas in my house, and the way i create traditions with the girls. i don't care about ornaments like jake does. he wants to keep every single little paper ornament the girls have ever come home from school with, and i'm not big on that. i can take them or leave them. jake is sentimental about those things, and that's fine, but after the fire i completely lost my ability to be attached to things--which is a point of contention in our household as i am constantly throwing things away.

but what you will find is a house full of the sounds and smells of christmas. instead of coming home from school and work and turning on the TV, i throw in christmas cds to listen to all evening long. cinnamon and vanilla scented candles burn virtually nonstop this time of year. i've been baking cinnamon rolls like crazy and i can't wait to start on gingerbread men.

these are thing, i feel, that the girls will be able to carry with them for the rest of their lives when christmas comes around, after i am gone. not the baubles and bows, but the tastes and the sounds.